Monday, August 31, 2015

The last time
president Maduro claimed to have evidence of a plot to assassinate him was December
14, 2014. From Ecuador, where he was attending UNASUR meeting, Maduro said
that a sicario had been sent form Central
America to kill him. No evidence was ever shown of the magnicidio attempt supposedly foiled by Venezuela’s secret services.

Today from Vietnam,
where he is signing several agreements, Maduro said
this: “We are being attacked from Bogotá. I have the evidence, and I will
show how from Bogotá there is a campaign to kill me, [a campaign] of hatred,
such as we had not faced in 15 or 16 years of Bolivarian Revolution (…). Unfortunately
the Colombian government is giving its consent [anuencia] and turning a blind eye [to this campaign],” he
added.

Friday, August 28, 2015

This week Maduro’s
government and official media have insisted on presenting the confessions of
José Pérez Venta and Carlos Trejo, the main suspects in the murder case of
Liana Hergueta, as evidence, the only presented so far, that there is a broad
conspiracy by Colombian paramilitaries and the local opposition to destabilize
the country.

The Agencia
Venezolana de Noticias (AVN) is refuting the claim made by “national
and international media that the [Hergueta] case was a police [sic] case, apparently isolated, of a
murder of a women for money, when in truth it is the evidence of a direct
relationship between right-wing groups in Venezuela and Colombian
paramilitarism and its criminal practices.”

For AVN Pérez Venta’s
confessions have “clearly stablished this criminal relation of antichavista sectors with paramilitary
groups of Colombia.”

The PSUV governor of
Aragua Tareck El Aissami also
revealed in a news conference this week that Pérez Venta had confessed to
being part of a plan to murder Daniela Cabello, the daughter of the president
of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello.

El Aissami said
that this newly revealed part of Pérez Venta’s confession is evidence that “the
opposition is engaged in the most disgusting violent plans against the country.”

However the pro-government
news portal La Tabla (here reposted by Aporrea) reports
that Andrea González and Dany Abreu, the two organizers of the plan to murder
Daniela Cabello according to Pérez Venta, are a pastry cook and a student of
electrical engineering with no links to the case, apart from Pérez Venta having
named them.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The claims that
paramilitaries are being brought into the country to destabilize fit well with
the government’s narrative that it is fighting a powerful but hidden enemy. In
this narrative the broadly defined paramilitaries serve as agents of a vast
opposition conspiracy plan which helps the government explain its policy
failures as an effect of that conspiracy. The government can blame the opposition,
and its alleged international backers for those failures, and at the same time
charge local opposition leaders and activists with criminal intent.

David Smilde and I
wrote this
post for the WOLA blog. We
summarize most of the claims made so far by the government and some of the
reactions by the opposition and human rights NGOs. Human right organizations
are especially concerned about the upsurge in deportations of Colombian
citizens and about the consequences of thy refer to as the xenophobic rhetoric recently
used by Maduro in his discourses.

President Maduro gave
a press
conference yesterday in which he also made a summary of his claims of “paramilitary
infiltration”. Maduro again accused Colombian ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez
of being behind of most of the criminal violence and of the “economic war” in
Venezuela by sending paramilitaries into the country. He also accused prominent
local opposition leaders of having ties with the paramilitaries.

Here is the press
note of the conference by the Agencia
Venezolana de Noticias:

Government officials
and state media have been blaming supposed paramilitaries “imported” from
Colombia by the local opposition and backed by the United States, for almost
everything from common crime to street protests.

Here is a sample how Venezuela
government sponsored Telesur has been covering the paramilitary incursions in
the country.

State media has been
showing a video of the confessions of the main suspect in the murder of Liana
Hergueta. Telesur has this
English subtitled version of the video titled: “The Parapolitics of
Venezuela’s right wing.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said 30 groups appear to be trained
and financed by Colombia to destabilize Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro revealed a video Tuesday that shows
links between leading figures of the country's right-wing opposition
with Colombian politicans and paramilitary groups.

In his weekly television program, Maduro showed a video allegedly exposing
groups trained and financed by the former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to
destabilize Venezuela.

In the video, Jose Perez Venta, primary suspect in the murder of
Liana Hergueta, reveals an elaborate network of contacts between far-right
politicians in Colombia, opposition Venezuelan activists, and paramilitary
groups.

"We have identified 30 groups trained and financed by Uribe from
Colombia," Maduro said. “We will capture all paramilitary groups who want
to hurt Venezuela."

Some of the well-known opposition political leaders mentioned in the
video are opposition activist Maria Corina Machado, former mayor of
metropolitan Caracas Antonio Ledezma, and the governor of
Miranda, Henrique Capriles.

According to Maduro paramilitary operatives were ordered to
kill opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez in order to stir chaos in the
country.

"Why did they want to kill Leopoldo Lopez? To blame the
Bolivarian revolution," he said referring to Venezuela's progressive
people's movement that came out of Hugo Chavez's presidency.

President Maduro also alleged that the video reveals the role played by
U.S. officials in destabilization attempts against his country. Perez states in
the video that opposition leaders received financing from the United States and
Spain who then funneled the money to other opposition activists.

Perez specifically names right-wing U.S. lawmaker Marco Rubio and the
charge d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Phil Laidlaw, as being
involved.

The murder of Liana Hergueta has shaken Venezuela. The woman’s body was
found dismembered and the Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez had previously
said her murder was politically-motivated.

Officials from the Ministry of Justice suspect that Hergueta was killed
for political reasons by groups connected to paramilitaries.

Another news clip by
Telesur in English reports of funding by the United States, according to the President
of Venezuela’s National Assembly Diosdado Cabello:

The head of the National Assembly on Wednesday evening uncovered new evidence that links the U.S.-backed opposition with the gruesome murder case that is shaking Venezuela.

More evidence has surfaced Wednesday for the second day in row, allegedly exposing the violent operations of Venezuela's right-­wing opposition, including explicit details on a controversial murder case that may be financially and politically tied to the U.S. embassy in the country.

Diosdado Cabello, the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, released a new video on Wednesday in which Jose Rafael Perez, the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of Venezuelan Liana Hergueta, confesses how he and his accomplice committed the crime and affirmed he received financial support from the U.S. embassy.

In the video, Perez Venta alleges that opposition student leader Gabriela Arellano met with a U.S. officialto discuss an “exit” plan for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, with the intent on finding financial backing to destabilize the country.

In the video, Perez Venta says he and his accomplice, Andrew Carlos Trejo, contacted Hergueta through the mobile phone application, WhatsApp, with the intent of killing after robbing her.

Perez also pointed to United States Congresswoman Betty Grossi alleging that she had financed him and participated in the deadly Guarimba protests of 2014.

Earlier, Cabello said that former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe sponsored paramilitaries in Venezuela with the intent to create social and political instability.

His statements echo the earlier announcement by Maduro, who alleged that the right-wing opposition was linked to Colombian paramilitaries.

The parliamentary leader also revealed a plan by a woman identified as Taiz Gonzalez, aka Dora the Explorer, who is in charge of purchasing chemical substances to be used in terrorist attacks in Venezuela.

“Uribe has financed and sponsored paramilitaries in Venezuela,” Cabello insisted.

The speaker of the assembly also mentioned a person by the name of Jose Luis Santa Maria “whose function is to place explosives in the Miraflores (presidential) Palace.”

Finally, Telesur gives further context to the news with this informative piece in Spanish characterizing opposition leaders as para-politicians:

Sunday, August 16, 2015

In the forum “Economic
war: A method for the domination of the people,” organized by the National Commission
against Contraband, the president of polling agency Hinterlaces, Óscar Schémel, lectured on the
socio-psychological aspects of the war the Venezuelan government claims it is
facing.

According to Hinterlace’s
press
note, “Schémel insisted upon the need to protect the image of President
Nicolás Maduro, because some sectors of the opposition are bent on discrediting
his government by using a campaign which includes psychological and economic
wars in order to increase the levels of uncertainty and vulnerability.”

Schémel claimed that
Hinterlaces has, for years, carried out studies on the “emotional distress feeling”
suffered by the Venezuelan people. Today, said the expert, “there is a rise in the
negative indicators, even as the levels of hope and optimism remain stable.”

This is because,
explained Schémel, there is now “a strategy of emotional destabilization. (…)
They [the opposition] will boost all its psycho-emotional weapons to produce a
neurotic vote.”

Since January this
year, Schémel and his agency Hinterlaces have fully subscribed the government’s
explanation of the current crisis as the consequence of an “economic war.” The
pollster has also added to the narrative the claim that a “phsyco-social war”
is also being waged against the Venezuelan people.

In its monthly report
Monitor País, of January 2015,
Hinterlaces warned about “future neurotic responses” by the population, induced
by the opposition. “The current
campaign,” claimed
the report, “executed by an experienced and professional “Mass Clinic” [Clínica de Masas],
constitutes a new chapter in a long planned process of accumulation of collective
distress [angustia] that
aims at rekindling the uncertainty and the feeling of defenselessness [of the
people], and also at provoking the overflowing of irrational responses. [All
part of an] insurrectional strategy –through a psychological-social war- that
the most radical adversaries of the Bolivarian Revolution have declared…”

In June 2015, Monitor Paísargued
that the “economic war” was taking its toll on the population, by increasing
the levels of “distress, pessimism, sadness, and preoccupation compared to last
March." Hinterlaces argued that the opposition was carrying out a "campaign of destabilization and neurotization agaisnt the Venezuelan society."

Last month, Óscar Schemel explained
that “there is now a psycho-social war that is trying to exacerbate discontent,
accentuate problems, and generate distress, vulnerability, defenselessness, in
order to produce future neurotic responses that would imply a [government]
rupture.”

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

In the Fourth
Extraordinary Meeting in Caracas of the Alianaza
Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América – Tratado de Comercio de los
Pueblos (ALBA-TCP) the participating countries have
agreed to “create accompanying commissions, integrated by foreign ministers,
to visit Ecuador and El Salvador, in order defended them of a soft coup attempt
promoted by the north-American Empire.”

Venezuela’s foreign
minister, Delcy Rodríguez, told representatives of ALBA countries attending the
meeting: “We have a lot to talk about among compañeros,
we want our people to know that we are here to take concrete actions for the
defense of our countries. We are aware of new imperial plans that are being made
against our countries. (…) Imperialism does not rest and it has the aim of
overthrowing [our governments],” said Rodríguez.

President Maduro also
addressed the participants to
inform that his government will stablish a commission “with the United
States to show the evidence of sabotage” against the Venezuelan economy.”

Maduro assured that
he has evidence, which will be shown by the new commission, on “how the [United
States] Southern Command has placed key officials inside the United States
Embassy in Venezuela in order to lead a vulture plan [plan buitre] of violence and of sabotage of the Venezuelan economy.”

“They would like
these sabotage plan to end in a coup d’état, (…) I’m sure that’s where they’re
aiming at, because of the brutality with which they have attacked, by
articulating criminals, attacking the economy, the [Venezuelan] currency, the
people, by generating ultra-rightists groups,” explained the President. “So I
think it is very good, this action plan approved by the ALBA in order to face
these conspiracies,” he added.

Monday, August 10, 2015

President Maduro has
informed that he has the evidence of links between ExxonMobil, opposition
candidates to December’s legislative elections, current opposition deputies,
and the United States Embassy in Caracas. However he will not be showing the
evidence yet because they are still being gathered in order to make a case for high
treason against the opposition deputies.

“I have the evidence
and I will show them when the time comes, because I am gathering the evidence
that these deputies are traitors to the Fatherland, they are involved in a conspiracy,”
declared Maduro.

He also again accused
the opposition of waging an economic war against the country: “There are many
reasons why they are waging the economic war. The bourgeoisie has kidnapped the
economy, they are holding the economy for ransom and they tell the people: hand
over Maduro or I will continue the economic war, hand over the Revolution or I
will continue with this economic coup.”

Friday, August 7, 2015

Maduro accused
yesterday the local opposition of preparing violent actions: “as small groups have
been preparing an ambush for last months,” he said.

But the President
also gallantly invited the opposition to a high level and open debate: “I call
upon a high level debate, and open and free debate, to all those sectors that
are basing their calculations on conspiracies, evilness, perversions, I ask them
to abandon such paths, otherwise they will face our peace offensive. They have persisted
in an economic coup, a paramilitary and criminal war, an electric war. They
will eventually have to face a total offensive to guarantee peace,” predicted
Maduro.

He also predicted
that the pro-government candidates will win the December 6 parliamentary
elections: “A victory that will surprise the whole world is coming, the
Admirable Victory of D6, against the economic war. The people will punish [the
opposition] with a justice vote, a popular vote, a Bolivarian Chavista vote.”

The declarations were
made by the President during a televised cabinet meeting to announce the establishment
of the “Presidential Civic-Military Command for the Permanent Watch to Preserve
the Peace of the People” (Comando
Presidencial Cívico-Militar Permanente para Preservar la Paz del Pueblo).

The specific functions
of this new Presidential Command were
not explained, but Maduro argued that the instance was necessary in order for
the government to keep a “24 hour watch” because, said the President, “every
day the government is defusing ambushes that the right prepares against the people,
by using sicarios and paramilitaries.”

“These
destabilization actions,” further explained Maduro, “are combined with a media
campaign to distort the national reality, [a campaign] promoted by
corporations, such as the international TV channel CNN, which on Thursday
showed falsely informed of looting in several cities of the country.”

As an example of how
the Command will function in its 24 hours watch, Maduro said
that the Governor of Aragua State Tarek El Aissami, would be spending the night
in a “situation room” at Miraflores palace, “coordinating all the pertinent
actions until Friday morning, when the watch will be turned to the next
persons.”

In the face of the pretentions of sector of the right,
who are trying to create conditions of instability and violence to intimidate
the people for the coming parliamentary elections, Venezuelans have been called
[by Maduro] to defend peace, as the only way to achieve
victories and social development in the country.

The Venezolana de Televisión video of Maduro’s
declarations can be watched here.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

In a discourse broadcast
live in national TV and radio cadena,
President Maduro informed
he has two documents, which he claimes were written by “the Pentagon …or the think tanks,” and which reveal the
design of a United States government plan to destroy Venezuela.

The documents,
according to Maduro, are the blue-print of a plan to “fill our Fatherland with
violence, chaos, death, divisions, uncertainty, and anguish. Because [these
documents say] they have calculated that the oligarchy, who I call the pelucones, would be able to get their
hands on the political power, and then, when they get that political power,
they can then go after the resources of our country and they would negotiate them,
they would give them away, as they did for two centuries, to imperial interests.”

“These are two simple
documents were they expose their strategy,” explained Maduro, “if you read them
with at least a little bit of common sense and rationality you will discover
that one thing is the promises the Empire makes to its local representatives in
Venezuela, and a very different thing is what the Empire is really after in our
Fatherland. The Empire is not only after political power, simply putting
someone in the place of another, no, don’t believe that, they want to
debilitate Venezuela, divide it, destroy its institutions, demoralize its people,
to fracture and waken the spiritual strength our armed forces. They are after a
scenario of the Libyan or Syrian type.”

“The flag of the
ultra-right and of the oligarchy, with the seal of the Empire, is to bring
violence, chaos, and national desperation,” added Maduro.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

President Maduro has officially
endorsed the theory that Jorge
Mier Hoffman was assassinated by the enemies of the revolution.

In a public meeting
with government candidates to the December 6 legislative elections Maduro informed
that the murderers had already confessed their crime: “They [the right] ordered
his [Mier Hoffman’s] murder by hired sicarios,
who have finally confessed what they did.”

Maduro suggested that
Mier Hoffman’s assassination is part of the “electoral campaign” of the
opposition: “The electoral campaign of the right is not just to go out and put
up some posters, we need to be aware of this, the campaign is to increase the
economic war against our people, to promote assassinations using criminal and paramilitary
groups, and to sabotage. Their campaign is about chaos, violence, uncertainty,
and pain.”

The problem, explained the President, is that
the “leaders of the revolution” need to do more to convince the Venezuelan people
of the existence of this conspiracy by the enemies of the revolution: “Our
people have the resources to fight this battle and not surrender or become afraid,
because they [the right] want the people to surrender and to ditch their values
before they [the right] bring back the products to the shelves and cease the
assassinations. The people have the resources, but the leaders need to reach
the consciousness of the people, [by going] face to face and correctly using
all of the media.”

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Yesterday in the city
of San Felix in Bolívar State at least four stores were looted in the central
Manuel Piar Avenue and in other areas of the center of the city. The National
Bolivarian Guard reestablished control of the city in the afternoon. One of the
looters died of gunshot and at least 60 people were arrested.

According to local
media the looting started in the morning after people started protesting because
of the lack of public transport. A supply truck for one of the supermarket became
stuck in the middle of a crowd of people waiting for transport and was
looted by the crowd. Looting then spread to the nearby supermarket and to
nearby stores.

However the governor
of Bolivar State, Francisco Rangel Gómez, proposed another explanation for what
happened yesterday. He
argues that the looting was part of a planned event: “If the people have
needs, they don’t go in shooting with firearms, I’m sure it all had political
aims, planned with a band of no less than 40 motorbikers,” said the governor.

According to the
governor the evidence that the looting episode was a planned event is that “people
are not going hungry, so there is no excuse for this to happen, [therefore]
this was no spontaneous event but [the work] of agitators that want to create a
state of calamity [conmoción].”

Later in the
afternoon President Maduro added to Rangel Gómez’s explanation of the event.
According to the Agencia
Venezolana de Noticias: “The President warned that these actions, for
which 60 people have been arrested, are part of a plan for the destabilization and
alteration of the peace of the country, which has been plotted outside the country
and is executed by mercenaries in Venezuela, and which was denounced by the
National Government at the beginning of the year.”

“We had been following
events like this which had been planned for other states,” explained
Maduro, “but thanks to the Operativos
de Liberación y Protección del Pueblo (OLP), and the popular intelligence of
thousands of Patriotas Cooperantes,
we have stopped the right from filling the country with what they want: violence.”

Maduro stablished a
direct link between the United States, the local opposition, and yesterday’s
looting events: “General (John F.) Kelly, of the United States Southern
Command, four months ago, predicted that there would be a social explosion in
the month of July. You know that a general of the US does not [simply] make
predictions; he orders, acts, and the battered right [derecha maltrecha, opposition] executes.”

“It’s all part of a
plan,” insisted
Maduro, “all of them [the plotters of the plan] live in New York and
Washington. Don’t you think for one moment that they [the opposition leaders]
go to New York and Washington just for tourism, to rest in their big apartments
and mansions, no, they go there to conspire, and when they come back [to
Venezuela] they come back with the dollars they get there and [use them] to
harm the people of this country.”

Fortunately, the government
can now use the newly created Operativos
de Liberación y Protección del Pueblo (OLP) to stop the mercenaries: “I
have given the order […] that the OLPs immediately reach the Bolivar State, let’s
go, immediately, go search for these mercenaries and infiltrated
paramilitaries,” said Maduro.

The looting event in
San Felix is all part of a conspiracy to stop the legislative elections of
December, finished Maduro: “with this new stage of violence, which has a modus operandi of using mercenaries, the
right is trying to suspend the parliamentary elections. [But] sabotage or no
sabotage, the people will give the battered right a historic lesson on December
6.”